


Do Not Stand at My Grave

by 3988Akasha



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3988Akasha/pseuds/3988Akasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy makes the trip every year because he knows someone needs to remember and he's the only one left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Not Stand at My Grave

**Author's Note:**

> I totally blame this for a poem that I came across and then there are the feels...
> 
> The full text of the poem is here, if you're interested. [Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-not-stand-at-my-grave-and-weep/)

He comes every year, on the same date, at the same time and stands in the same spot. No one comes anymore, most have forgotten, or at least, pretend they’ve forgotten. He used to blame them, but he understands times change, those once idolized fade into obscure memory. Some years, when he stands on the snow covered ground, he wonders why he continues to come and pay homage. It’s always as he walks away that he recalls why he returns each year with his bottle of single malt and bundle of snapdragons. And he smiles and offers a wave to the ones who are no longer here. It is a ritual for him now, to break the seal on the bottle, pour a shot for himself in the shot glass he always keeps with him as a memento. Then he spills a double, the amber liquid stains the ground.  

It is a silly ritual, one he might not have indulged in before knowing them, but he knew their secrets, he knows they were both sentimental fools. He believes they would both name him the bigger fool and they’d be right. The edifice he stands in front of each year is a ruse, a placebo disguised as a sedative for the masses. It was necessary in the early days, a measure to ensure peace after the unthinkable. After all, common lore holds that deities are immortal. Few know the truth about created gods and even fewer know they are merely simple men performing extraordinary tasks. Men immortalized for their deeds, men solemnized for their flaws, but romanticized because at least they tried.

The first time he undertakes the pilgrimage, he falls to his knees upon arrival and cries his agony to the winds. After many years, he still feels the injustice of his continued existence, still wonders why he remains. He no longer falls to his knees. Instead, he stands tall, as a sign of respect for the men who’d lived and died in exactly the same way. They’d call him a damned fool for making the trip each year, for risking everything to stand for a few moments at a place void of meaning. He smirks, knowing that was part of his motivation. He knows the truth and ironically that makes his visitations almost sacrilegious, as though he indulges the lie, making him complicit in the biggest cover-up in recent history.

He shouldn’t stand here to grieve because he knows they’re not here. Their bodies do no lie entombed beneath his feet and the votive offering never reaches their decaying bodies. The truth is less romantic, and few people know it. Romanticized endings are easier to swallow, easier to accept than the cold, hard reality. He remembers the reality because he was there, it was a command performance, his last official duty, one he would never forget and forever regret. The pyre was built high there on the field where Illinois blends into Kentucky, or at least where it used to, it’s all Georgia now. At first it looks like a warrior’s death, the Homeric ending apropos. He knows the new law; he knows only traitors are burned. In this unrecognizable world, traitors are burned and heroes are buried.

Maybe that’s why he comes to the grave each year, hallow though it is because he needs to believe their buried. Perhaps he should look up to the skies, knowing gods return to the heavens when the mortals lose faith in them. He understands his faith is not enough to sustain them. Gods of their magnitude need armies of worshipers to give life to the veins. Their devoted armies are gone, scattered like their gods as ash upon the winds. The air held the stench of burning flesh for days after the pyres were built and lit. Still, there were those who were loyal, those who still believed in their fallen gods. The new regime knew they couldn’t kill everyone, leaving no one left to rule, so a new decree was written, a new history of the way it all ended. They died heroes; that part remained true in all histories, they died together, also an immutable truth. They will be remembered as heroes, an epitaph put up in their names at the place where they were buried out of respect for who they were, for what they did for how they tried. That is the worst lie of all.

Because each year when he stands at the grave and weeps, he knows they’re not there.

  **~FIN~**

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd let me know what you see!


End file.
